The pleasure which attends good health, and which is certainly more than mere freedom from pain, is a pleasure of the same kind. It is a pleasure, however, which, like every other long continued bodily pleasure, we may suppose, to be diminished by habitual enjoyment; and it is therefore, chiefly, on recovery from sickness, when the habit has been long broken by feelings of an opposite kind, that we recognize what it must originally have been; if, indeed it be in our power to separate, completely, the mere animal pleasure from those mingling reflecting pleasures which arise from the consideration of past pain, and the expectation of future delight. To those among you, who know what it is to have risen from the long captivity of a bed of sickness, I need not say, that every function is, in this case, more than mere vigour; it is a happiness, but to breathe and to move; and not every limb merely, but almost every fibre of every limb, has its separate sense of enjoyment. “What a blessed thing it is to breathe the fresh air!” said Count Struensee, on quitting his dungeon, though he was quitting it only to be led to the place of execution, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to have felt much more than the mere animal delight. “He does not scorn it, who, imprisoned long In some unwholesome dungeon, and a prey To sallow sickness, which the vapours, dank And clammy of his dark abode have bred, Escapes at last to liberty and light; His cheek recovers soon its healthful hue; His eye relumines its extinguish'd fires; He walks, he leaps, he runs--is wing'd with joy, And riots in the sweets of every breeze.”[62] On these mere animal gratifications, however, I need not dwell any longer. There is much more to interest our curiosity, in the sensations and perceptions which more frequently go under those names; to the consideration of which I shall proceed in my next Lecture. FOOTNOTES: [60] Gray de Principiis Cogitandi, Lib. I. v. 1-5. [61] On the Active Powers, Essay III. c. 1. [62] Cowper's Task, book i. LECTURE XVIII. ON THE MORE DEFINITE EXTERNAL AFFECTIONS OF MIND IN GENERAL.